Lost luggage and Indian efficiency

Tuesday May 29 – New Delhi

Upon waking I passed on my problem of getting the box of drawings to the Indians.    I had thought – no problem – just give the luggage tag to the driver who would be sitting around all day anyway waiting for the meeting to end, and he could go pick them up.  However, it turned out to be quite a challenging task. First, it was too important to be left to a driver, so they gave it to some poor bastard in the office.  For the next 8 hrs I was given constant updates in the efforts to obtain the box.  First I had to sign a letter saying that this person was approved to pick up the box for me.  A short time later they asked to borrow my passport so they could photocopy it.  Then they decided it would be better to take my real passport and a copy to the get the box without telling me.   Still the authorities refused to give up the box .  Then I had to sign the letter again the same way as my full signature in the passport was.  No – not good enough.  They asked for a photo to be attached to the letter.  I refused this request.  Every hour I got an update, with the officials refusing to release the box.  I told them to forget the box, just please bring back my passport.   But the negotiations were continuing and they were not ready to give up yet.  In the end they released the box and it was delivered with the passport just as we needed to leave to head back to the airport.  Typical India.  Most likely someone wanted some cash to release the box and continued to think up new ways to make life difficult.